


Scatter Me Gentle

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Pieces Verse - Soulmate AU [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other, Transphobia, everybody else but janus is mentioned, unintentional misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27119455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Virgil knows Roman is a little sheltered.This? This is not one of the results he was expecting.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Series: Pieces Verse - Soulmate AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745191
Comments: 43
Kudos: 399





	Scatter Me Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> a direct sequel to Patched Up Satin, taking place about a month and a half later
> 
> thank you to @airiervessel for beta-reading and Crying With Me

Virgil knew people’s lives generally changed pretty quickly when they met their soulmates.

As a person _not really very keen on change at all_ , he’d been dreading it, just a little. Oh it wasn’t like he _hated_ the idea of a soulmate but the upheaval, the dizzying tumult his parents talked about while staring at each other sweetly – it kind of sounded just as anxiety-inducing as it did wonderful.

He hadn’t exactly been… _wrong._

If Virgil had been asked to rank everyone in the world from most to least likely to be his soulmate, Roman Fitzroy might genuinely have been at the absolute bottom of the list. Virgil had seen him, his brothers, and his parents at the few parades he’d seen by chance (he’d have rather pulled teeth than actually _attend),_ and while he did have to admit that the stories about how handsome the three Fitzroy kids were weren’t exaggerated, that had been as far as it went – a fleeting acknowledgment of physical attraction.

And then he’d met him.

Wearing a halter top in a part of the city that made him look utterly out of place, pale and shaking and outnumbered, Virgil hadn’t thought twice about throwing himself in the middle of the fight, no matter his personal feelings about the Fitzroys – who knew what those assholes planned on doing to him if he lost.

And then it had taken all of four hours for the sweet, endearingly naive social butterfly of a _dork_ to almost effortlessly crumble every wall Virgil had tried to put between them.

It wasn’t bad – if you’d told him two months ago he would have been pissed, or laughed maybe, but it _wasn’t_ bad, being with Roman. It was actually pretty amazing, nine times out of ten.

But “upheaval” was a massive understatement when it came to being Roman’s soulmate, because now Virgil was freaking married to him.

It had been that or watch Roman’s nightmarish parents try to marry him off right out from under Virgil, who’d only _just_ found him – of course Virgil wasn’t going to let that happen, but he’d kind of thought he’d have a soulmate-boyfriend _before_ he had a soulmate-husband.

Roman, who had apparently spent his whole life assuming he was going to be married off to a near-perfect stranger, didn’t seem to find anything odd about this (and didn’t that make Virgil want to punch something), but he’d agreed to Virgil’s request to still use “boyfriend” when his parents weren’t around easily in spite of his confusion.

So Virgil lived in the big house now, which as long as he was with just Roman, his brothers, or Patton (AKA the only other sane person in this entire place) was fine, but if he was in the same room as Winston and Josephina fucking Fitzroy was a bit of a nightmare.

He’d refused to quit his job out of spite, so a lot of the time he wasn’t actually there. And he actually got along fairly well with the security staff, once they figured out he would actually speak to them.

Less so the… maids, god that was weird. He really didn’t like strangers touching his stuff.

But it wasn’t like he was rude to them, he was just… really, _super_ uncomfortable. All the time. No big deal.

He waved at one of them as he passed her in the hallway, on his way back to his and Roman’s shared room after spending all day at work. He’d almost got them to stop doing that weird deferential nod when they saw him – she started to do it and then seemed to catch herself, waving back and actually giving him a small smile.

Sweet. Small win for the day.

He usually knocked before he entered the room – married or not, he and Roman very much wore pajamas to bed and did not change in the same rooms, because Virgil wasn’t going to take advantage of Roman’s complete lack of understanding about what the timeline of romantic relationships _should be_ and do anything more than kiss him.

But he was distracted by the interaction with the maid, and didn’t think about it before he absentmindedly pushed open the door.

Roman yelped in alarm, and Virgil froze in the doorway, face heating and brain already screaming at him to retreat.

But – Roman was dressed. In clothes he’d referred to as a “slumming it” outfit once, and then immediately apologized when it made Virgil wince, but he _was_ dressed, in his favorite halter top and one of the two skirts he owned. Virgil had seen him in it more than once, when he’d taken Roman out into the city.

So why did Roman look like he’d been caught doing something wrong?

“Um- hello, dear,” said Roman, gripping his own forearms in the little self-hug motion that Virgil had seen all three Fitzroy brothers do when they were anxious, the one that kind of made Virgil’s heart ache.

“… Hey, babe,” said Virgil hesitantly.

Roman visibly swallowed, squeezing himself a little harder. Virgil shut the bedroom door behind him and stepped cautiously into the room.

“Are you okay?” he said quietly.

“Fine!” said Roman, who, as Virgil had come to figure out over the past month, was an absolutely awful liar.

Virgil came close enough to touch, and close enough to realize Roman was shaking.

“Do you want a hug?”

Another thing Virgil had figured out since he met Roman – he clung. Every touch, so much as a held hand, Roman gripped at desperately like he thought it would be taken away, like he thought it was the last time Virgil would ever touch him.

Even as apparently anxious as he was, now was no exception – Roman immediately burrowed into Virgil’s half-open arms, wrapping his arms tight around Virgil’s ribs and making clingy fists in the back of his jacket.

“Hey, pretty boy, it’s okay.” Virgil murmured.

Roman just squeezed even harder.

Virgil held him like that, swaying in the middle of their room, for several long minutes, growing more and more anxious the longer Roman seemed no closer to calming down. Pressing a kiss to his temple, Virgil reached up to run his fingers through Roman’s hair, humming tunelessly.

Finally, Roman let out a shuddering breath – he didn’t quite let go, but he pulled back a little, grabbing Virgil’s hand.

He held it in his own, looking down at the red on Virgil’s palm, staring for several moments.

“Can I ask you for something?” he said, so quietly Virgil almost couldn’t understand him.

“Yeah, babe, of course,” said Virgil gently.

Roman bit his lip.

“You know Elliott?” he said, and then immediately cringed. “That was a stupid question, I’m sorry, of course you know Elliott-”

“Hey, easy,” said Virgil, squeezing his hand. “What about Ellie, babe?”

Roman looked up at Virgil with the most painfully vulnerable expression Virgil had ever seen on another person.

“Could I be a them?”

Roman seemed to take Virgil’s sharp intake of breath as a negative, because they immediately started backtracking.

“Just for a minute!” they said a little hysterically, their eyes going shiny. “Or not, it’s fine-”

“Roman, _Roman,_ ” said Virgil, choking up. “Oh, baby, please don’t cry, _of course._ Of course you can.”

Roman looked dubious and off-kilter, and Virgil squeezed their hand again.

“This is Roman,” he said, his voice a croak. “They look really nice today, in their skirt. They really can’t cry right now or I’m gonna start crying too and then where the hell will we be?”

Roman giggled wetly, a small smile forming on their face.

_I love them so much,_ Virgil almost continued, but nerves stopped him before he could voice it.

“I want them to be happy all the time,” he said instead. “They’re a wonderful soulmate and a really good person.”

Roman was grinning now, just a little, their eyes a tad wondrous. Virgil wanted to kiss them, but he wasn’t sure if Roman wanted him to keep going instead.

“Could-”

Roman stopped, that anxious look returning.

“Could what?” said Virgil, leaning down to press their foreheads together. “Probably yes. I’d rob a bank for you right now, just so you know.”

Roman fidgeted nervously.

“Is- is it a, um- a thing to use… more than one?”

“Pronoun?” said Virgil gently.

Roman nodded.

“You can have as many pronouns as you want,” said Virgil, pressing their foreheads firmly. “Any you want Roman.”

Roman’s wondrous little smile returned.

“What if- could I try, uh- he and they?” he asked.

“This is Roman, he has really good taste in skirts,” said Virgil immediately. “It really helps that they’re the prettiest person I know, of course. I’d really like to kiss him at some point, but only when they feel like it.”

“ _Oh,_ ” said Roman, his eyes suddenly flooding with tears as they reached up to hold Virgil’s face in his hands.

“Is that it?” said Virgil, pulling them closer, his own throat closing up.

“Yeah,” said Roman wetly. “Yeah, I like that one.”

Their smile widened for a moment, stunningly happy.

It wobbled a little, once, twice, and then his face _crumpled,_ and he burst into tears.

“ _Roman?”_ Virgil exclaimed, following them down as they sank to the floor. “Roman? Roman, baby, what’s wrong?”

“You- you can’t tell anyone.” Roman sobbed.

Virgil’s heart felt like it froze in his chest.

“They’re already so angry at me,” Roman continued rubbing fruitlessly at his own tears, as Virgil’s stomach dropped lower and lower. “I don’t- I don’t know what they’ll do, and if they disown me I don’t know if I’ll be able to see Logan and Remus anymore-”

“Your brothers wouldn’t let them.” said Virgil, cradling Roman’s face and wiping their tears with his thumbs. “Roman, you know they’d never abandon you if your parents did that, don’t you?”

“Logan _cares_ though,” said Roman. “About the city, how it like, runs and- I don’t want him to give that up because of _me_ , and my parents will never, ever approve of them still talking to me if they send me away, and- and I know I don’t know how anything in the _real world_ works, how would I ever get a job or something-”

“I would _help you_ ,” said Virgil desperately. “ _I’d_ help you, Roman, I’d never leave you alone.”

Roman was still shaking his head.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” they said wetly.

Virgil’s heart was throbbing. It was _breaking_ , and he lost the fight with his own tears, pulling Roman into his arms and holding him close against his chest.

“It’s your choice, Roman,” he said, swallowing firmly, “I won’t tell anyone you don’t want me to.”

He reached down to tilt up Roman’s chin.

“But I do think- I do think your brothers would accept anything you told them.” he said gently, “I can tell how much they love you, Roman. They might be confused, like you were with Ellie at first, but don’t think they would ever leave you.”

“I know,” said Roman, sniffing and pressing their face into Virgil’s throat, “But they would – you know how you get, when people use the wrong pronouns for Elliott?”

“Yeah,” said Virgil, nodding.

“I think Remus might actually stab people,”

He sniffed again, and Virgil reached up to wipe a few more tears from both their faces.

“And they’d- they wouldn’t want me to keep it a secret, I think,” he continued quietly, “If they knew…”

They trailed off for a few moments.

“If they knew what?” Virgil prompted softly.

Roman bit his lip.

“If they knew how happy it made me,” they said, voice wobbling, “The right ones, I mean,”

Virgil could understand it – _he_ knew that the thought of going about his day in the rest of this house, in the rest of his life outside of this bedroom, knowing he was misgendering Roman was already making him nauseous. It wasn’t really an unreasonable conclusion Roman was making.

But this wasn’t about Virgil, and it wasn’t about Remus or Logan. It was about Roman. The only thing that mattered here was what Roman wanted.

“Okay,” whispered Virgil “Okay, baby, I won’t tell anyone. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” croaked Roman, “And thank you- for helping. For saying them. It was- it was really nice.”

“ _Any_ time you want,” said Virgil immediately, “Any time, you ask me and I’ll talk about how great Roman is, how beautiful they are, how wonderful he is. No matter what, I will always do that for you.”

Roman gave him a wobbly smile, leaning in a little to give Virgil a slightly wet, salty kiss, and Virgil held him as tight as he dared.

Roman broke the kiss and burrowed back into Virgil’s embrace.

“Thank you,” they repeated, “I love you.”

His heart stuttering, Virgil pulled Roman even closer, burying his face in his hair. His Roman, brave and beautiful. Virgil could be a little braver, for them

“I love you, too,” he breathed, pressing a kiss to his husband’s hair.

At least here, in this room, Virgil could give Roman everything they deserved.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me over on tumblr @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors!


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